Chris Randall | If you're in the market for a new laptop for your SDEs, I highly recommend the HP EliteBook 8760w workstation. It's like taking a super-fast, full-sized tower computer and cramming it all into a laptop with an amazing display. With Adobe CS 5.5, the 8760w, and its built-in NVIDIA graphics card, you'll be ready to rock the SDE world!

Jan Ozer | Over the years, I've gathered some thoughts on what it takes to produce and deliver a high-quality video experience and, to a degree, succeed as a video producer. While most of this will be old hat to grizzled veterans, perhaps some newbie will find these ramblings, and the associated resources that I point to, of use.

David McKnight | Vegas Pro 11 was announced at IBC in September and is an exciting and much-anticipated upgrade to the cornerstone in Sony Creative Software's (SCS) media production line. It's available now at www.sonycreativesoftware.com for immediate download. There are some important changes afoot and in this review we're going to take a look at what's new, what's changed, what's missing, and whether or not you should upgrade from your current version.

Jan Ozer | I think that Final Cut Pro X will be a very successful program for Apple, but primarily as iMovie Pro, not the next version of Final Cut Pro. I don't argue with Apple's economic motivation for eschewing the pro market; it's the best way to maximize Apple's development resources. But I take serious issue with the notion that the Final Cut Pro X launch has been anything close to successful, at least for professional users. If anything, it's a downloadable New Coke.

Chris P. Jones | By 'templatizing' as much of your editing process as possible, you will reduce your backlog and your delivery time, and this will make your clients happier than if you were to commission Danny Elfman to compose an original score.

David McKnight | After months of speculation about what would be in the latest full-step upgrade to Sony Creative Software's popular pro NLE, the new version has brought users new features and increased performance—without sacrificing stability. In this overview we'll cover many of these new features in Vegas Pro 10 that will benefit event videographers and filmmakers. Also, bookmark this page: we'll be adding new Vegas Pro 10 video tutorials every month through the first half of 2011.

Shawn Lam | What happens when you deliver your event live? This is nothing new for live TV broadcasters, but more and more event video producers are being asked to perform their postproduction activities in real-time—that is, live as the event is occurring.

Shawn Lam | Adobe CS5.5 Production Premium, launched today at NAB, delivers improvements in speed, postproduction fixes, and real-time creative effects. Not only will the speed improve turnaround times, it will also provide editors with the luxury of experimenting, which is an important part of the creative process.

Jan Ozer | The Primera Bravo 4102 prints gorgeous discs at never-before-seen speeds. During my tests, it didn't produce a coaster after burning more than 200 discs. If you're looking for a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Disc production system, this unit needs to be on your short list.

Stephen Nathans-Kelly | Does 3D have a place in wedding filmmaking's future, or is that notion just the stuff of science fiction? We spoke with one of 3D's earliest adopters in the wedding world, Abraham Joffe of Sydney, Australia. A few months back, Joffe produced and delivered a 3D wedding film—Australia's first, but already not its last—and lived to tell the tale.

Exhibition showcases the newest HD technology in an informal setting that allows professionals to get hands-on experience with the latest groundbreaking gear while conversing with colleagues and industry decision-makers

Jan Ozer | If you're shooting in 24p, you should deliver your projects in 24p. This sounds obvious and simple, but it can get surprisingly complex depending upon your choice of encoding and authoring tool. I just spent 2 weeks comparing MPEG-2 encoders, and I saw a surprising difference in quality and ability to deliver 24p footage that Apple's DVD Studio Pro could import and the quality Adobe Encore was able to achieve without re-encoding. In this column, I'll discuss those findings and detail the best workflows for producing 24p DVDs.

David McKnight | Since most Vegas users work with the companion DVD Architect program to author DVD and Blu-ray Discs, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to showcase some snazzy motion menus that integrate well into DVD Architect. We'll be working with Sony DVD Architect 5, Adobe After Effects CS3, and Pro Motion Menu Kits from Precomposed Motion Menus.

Jan Ozer | The launch of Adobe CS5 brings to bear the obvious comparison with Final Cut Studio (FCS). Since life has been far too quiet lately, I decided to tackle this subject, but from the perspective of the totally new user, not the experienced user who would rather fight than switch. In other words, what would you say if a total newbie asked, "Which should I use, FCS 3 or Adobe CS5?"

Marc Franklin | Every year the NAB show teems with new product announcements and trends, and it often marks the real-world debut of tantalizing new gear that was under glass a year ago. Some of what you see is too premature for primetime, some new developments look a little misguided, and others are simply mismatched with the event filmmaking world. Here's a look at what's ready, what's real, and what's most relevant to us among the most exciting products that are making their way to market following this year's show.

Ben Balser | In Final Cut Studio 3, there is a new Share option under the File menu in Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor. This month's Cut Lines lays out an easy way to create a custom export preset, designed for your own specific needs, that will show up in the Share window for fast, easy export and publishing.

Jan Ozer | Video technology and postproduction expert Jan Ozer examines Adobe's new CS5 integrated suite from a variety of angles, including new features and interfaces, a run-down of theadvantages of the new Mercury engine, performance comparisons between CS4 and CS5, and configuration suggestions for video pros working with the new suite.

Ben Balser | Final Cut Studio 2009, the long-anticipated new release of Apple's eminent postproduction suite, delivers no major overhaul of anything, just a few little touches applied to most of the applications that can save you a ton of time during your postproduction process. Although none of the new features, taken by themselves, represent anything mind-blowing, together they make for a faster, easier workflow that will save you a lot of time.

Ben Balser | Final Cut Studio 2009, the long-anticipated new release of Apple's eminent postproduction suite, delivers no major overhaul of anything, just a few little touches applied to most of the applications that can save you a ton of time during your postproduction process. Although none of the new features, taken by themselves, represent anything mind-blowing, together they make for a faster, easier workflow that will save you a lot of time.

In-Stat reports that consumers are interested in receiving 3D in the home, but 25% of those who are at least somewhat interested in having the ability to view 3D content at home are unwilling to spend extra on a 3D TV, and 43% want to spend $200 or less on the new TV

Shawn Lam | This is a review of Adobe's Speech to Text feature, which is found in both Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4. I'm stating this upfront because somewhere along the line in the 4 months since I was commissioned to test and write about this new feature and when and I completed my review, I decided that I would be doing a disservice to my readers by spending the entire article discussing a feature that is just a bit ahead of its time, while ignoring one (Dynamic Link) that has been around for a few versions but is finally fully functional.

Shawn Lam | This is a review of Adobe's Speech to Text feature, which is found in both Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4. I'm stating this upfront because somewhere along the line in the 4 months since I was commissioned to test and write about this new feature and when and I completed my review, I decided that I would be doing a disservice to my readers by spending the entire article discussing a feature that is just a bit ahead of its time, while ignoring one (Dynamic Link) that has been around for a few versions but is finally fully functional.

Cinematize 2 and Cinematize 2 Pro are award-winning DVD movie clip extractors that allow you to extract audio, video, and subtitle clips off of DVDs and convert them into formats compatible with popular applications including QuickTime, FinalCut, iMovie, iDVD, PowerPoint, iTunes, Apple TV, and even an iPod

Jan Ozer | By now you've heard that there's a new version of Final Cut Studio shipping from Apple. What's new? Well, it starts with a new price of $999, $300 less than Final Cut Studio 2. You can upgrade to the new suite from any previous version, even Final Cut Pro 1.0, for $299. All suite components were upgraded (to varying degrees) except for DVD Studio Pro—which, as you may recall, wasn't upgraded in the previous suite either. Fear not, however (are you sitting down?): The suite upgrade does enable a modest level of Blu-ray Disc authoring. Read on for more details.

Adobe Premiere® Pro CS4 version 4.1, a free update for existing customers of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, improves compatibility with RED cameras, offering more control over RAW settings when used in conjunction with an updated RED plug-in, available in May from RED.com

Jan Ozer | Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4) Production Premium allows you to send Premiere Pro sequences to both the Adobe Media Encoder (AME) and Adobe Encore for rendering or authoring while continuing to edit in Premiere Pro. The bad news is this significantly increases CS4's memory requirements, and on a 32-bit operating system, this can mean longer rendering times, instability, or both. If you want CS4's features without the performance penalty, you should consider running CS4 on a 64-bit system.

Introduced several years ago as a 2-DVD set called Business Everlasting and later expanded into The Complete Course with a 3-ring binder chock full of useful content, Alan Naumann's definitive memorial videography training kit has been recently updated with a variety of helpful materials.

PixelPops Design, LLC announces the departure of Russ Jolly from the highly creative pixelmonkey team. After almost 8 years as a part of the three-member partnership Russ leaves PixelPops to pursue other interests

Jan Ozer | One of the coolest new features in Adobe Encore CS4 is the ability to insert pop-up menus over video in Blu-ray Disc projects, a feature unique among authoring programs in Encore's class. In this tutorial, I'll describe how to implement that feature as I did in a simple project I produced in early fall.

Jan Ozer | Most pro videographers are well-versed in animated backgrounds and other accoutrements for dressing up DVD deliverables, but as we move to HD delivery and update our skills accordingly, it's also important to update our knowledgebase of the HD tools available for polishing up our work. Here's a look at what's available now.

Jan Ozer | Most pro videographers are well-versed in animated backgrounds and other accoutrements for dressing up DVD deliverables, but as we move to HD delivery and update our skills accordingly, it's also important to update our knowledgebase of the HD tools available for polishing up our work. Here's a look at what's available now.

Chris Randall | Jeff Pulera's new tutorial, available from Safe Harbor Computers, is an excellent resource for any Matrox RT.X2 user wanting to get the most out of HDV and Blu-ray production. It greatly helps the viewer get up to speed and learn the various encoding and export options for HDV Blu-ray projects.

Jan Ozer | I got flamed repeatedly after writing a blog post about Sony Vegas while I was at NAB. In essence, the post stated that it was easy for me to recognize the NLE's many strengths, but that didn't make me any more comfortable using it. These responses made me crystallize my thinking about why we choose the video editors we choose, and it came down to three reasons: "the complete product," "first love," and sheer, subjective preference.

Ben Balser | In this installment of Cut Lines, we look at a growing trend among Final Cut users: utilizing Keynote--the iWork application designed for slideshow-model presentations--as a quick-and-easy motion graphics tool for creating DVD backgrounds.

Marc Franklin | NAB, the annual national broadcast convention, always features a few great new products in the event videographer's wheelhouse. Here's a quick guide to the best products for our market from this year's show, divided into three parts: cameras, production support, and postproduction.

Hugh Bennett | When working with Blu-ray, the need to enter into and comply with various license agreements differs depending upon the circumstance. Since most videographers and duplicators deal in single or (at most) a few hundred discs at a time, the author of EMedialive's Authoritative Blu-ray Disc (BD) FAQ will address licensing issues that pertain to situations where BD content is distributed on writable rather than pressed discs.

The newly released Acoolsoft PPT2DVD 2.0 has been enhanced with flexible DVD Menus, additional PowerPoint to video functions, latest Blu-ray technology, and new encode engine for higher conversion speed. There improvements will make the PowerPoint to DVD conversion more efficient and more flexible

Philip Hinkle | When I took delivery of a new Sony BWU-200S 4X BD burner, my goal was to deliver wedding videos, with menus, on Blu-ray Disc, for minimal additional investment. Here's the workflow I developed, and how I got there.

Ben Balser | In Part 3 of our motion graphics crash course, we'll transform our 3D animated titles into DVD menus, add transitions, and complete the project we started with LiveType in Part 1 and Motion in Part 2.

Anthony Burokas | Premiere Pro CS3 brings the Adobe NLE back to the Mac as a polished-looking product capable of handling most editing needs with ease. Editors who demand deep capability and minute control may find a few features lacking in what is essentially a version 1.0 MacTel product, but shops that use other Adobe tools, such as Photoshop and After Effects, will enjoy the integration (if they spring for the full CS3 Production Premium suite) and will find Premiere Pro a nice addition to their dock.

Tim Siglin | Fortunately for our EventDV readers that may be called upon to use their talents to cut together 400 digital still images—and just as many digital video clips from a variety of cameras—into a coherent music video telling the story of the activity, Adobe and Apple have both released upgrades to their flagship video, motion graphics, and audio tools that will help meet these needs.

Chris Randall | It appears that the wait for a Blu-ray Disc authoring solution fully integrated with a mainstream pro NLE is over, with software giant Adobe selecting Blu-ray as their format of choice for delivery of HD video in the new CS3 version of Encore, which debuts in July with the release of Adobe CS3 Production Premium. Here's a quick walkthrough of Blu-ray Disc workflow in Encore CS3.

New version, 2.03 includes several new features such as an option to keep intermediate files, more frame size options for MPEG-4 output, support for Apple TV movie output, and improved extraction speed, as well as some fixes

Marc Franklin| While this year's NAB show didn't have as many wows as last year's, there were a number of new products and technologies unveiled that will have an impact on the event videography market in the coming year and beyond. From standard-setting HD cameras to innovative animation tools to major new entries from Apple and Adobe and a stunning studio-in-abox, here are 12 products to watch from NAB 2007.

Hugh Bennett | For similar money to Pioneer's BDR-101A, the PX-B900A offers more features including dual-layer BD-R/RE burning, superior blank media support, and CD reading and writing abilities, as well as a functional software suite. That said, it's still early in the game and BD recorders of all stripes need time to mature and reach an affordable price level to attract a larger audience. But Plextor has made a good start.

Event will feature product demonstrations from some of the most respected presenters in the industry. GraVT Expo is for everyone, weather you are producing home movies, wedding videos, corporate, or broadcast video, SD or HD you will see a product that works for you.

Anthony Burokas | At a time when Apple is stratifying users between $80 consumer iLife apps—iMovie and iDVD—or the $1,300 Final Cut Studio package, Adobe basically invites Mac users to dig out their old copy of Premiere and sign up for the Premiere Pro CS3 Upgrade for just $299, with the Blu-ray capable Encore CS3 thrown into the mix as well.

Jan Ozer | Ulead DVD MovieFactory ($79.99) is the best choice I've seen for video producers who need to deliver both Blu-ray and HD DVD for their clients now. HD DVD authoring is about what you'd expect in terms of DVD authoring from a consumer product, but Blu-ray is more limited. If you need menus on your Blu-ray discs, Roxio DVDit Pro HD is a better choice, but it costs a bunch more and has its own player-related issues.

Jeff Sauer | There’s a lot to like about the new Vegas+DVD Production Suite, particularly if you happen to shoot with XDCAM. Vegas 7’s improved HDV support will appeal to a much broader audience, as will the faster audio processing, and the new DVD Architect features advanced scripting and some nifty DVD timeline enhancements for motion menu designers. Vegas remains quirky in places, but it’s a deep editor with a lot of features, and most of those features are right at your fingertips in the main interface.

2006 was an action-packed year for new product releases in the event video space, from the pre-NAB launches of Adobe's Dynamic Linked Production Studio and SmartSound's Mood Mapped Sonicfire Pro 4, to the CMOS-charged HDV cameras that electrified IBC. And if the much-hyped debuts of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc didn't make much of an impact in our business this year, there were plenty of new entries that did. We polled our contributing editors and columnists for their Best of 2006 list, and here we present the winners.

Jan Ozer | This article discusses three ways to produce high-definition video for viewing on either HD DVD or Blu-ray players—three solutions that will work for us right now. Briefly, these involve using Apple DVD Studio Pro or Pinnacle Studio to burn HD DVD-formatted discs on your current DVD±R/RW burner for playback on an HD DVD set top player, or using Roxio DVDit Pro HD to record projects to a Blu-ray recorder for playback on a Blu-ray set-top player.

Anthony Burokas | A full-fledged PC designed to make DVD recording as simple and straightforward as set-top DVD decks, but with greater flexibility, DVD Shop is a very powerful tool if you intend to use it to its full ability. However, if you don't need the advanced features DVD Shop provides, there are software-only packages that can handle each aspect of what DVD Shop does and are not tied to a piece of hardware.

Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen | Though Roxio's Easy Media Creator might be the overall best in show when it comes to letting novices create impressive video and slideshow DVDs, MovieFactory comes $50 cheaper at $49.99, and scores high for its Multitrim editing, a redesigned GUI featuring an uncluttered new launcher, and an ingenious new Smart Scene Menu.

Todd Gillespie | Miraizon's Cinematize is specifically designed to pull the digital files from a DVD into a multitude of formats for a variety of uses. Cinematize gives you the power of creativity and lets you utilize your DVDs in a way you've not yet considered--or at least not considered possible.

Jan Ozer | With the Production Studio Premium bundle, Adobe delivers new capabilities that maintain feature parity with most relevant competitors and new integration features throughout the suite that will streamline the workflow for Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects users. Throw in the more unified and streamlined interfaces in all the applications, and you've got a powerful, comprehensible, and affordable product offering that's well worth a look for most event videographers.

Jan Ozer | There’s a lot that goes into the perfect DVD, but one of the most fundamental aspects is navigation, or how you control the way the viewer moves through the content on the DVD. In this tutorial, I identify which aspects of the user experience you can control, and how to do so in two leading prosumer authoring tools: Sonic Solutions’ DVDit Pro 6 and Apple’s DVD Studio Pro.

Anthony Burokas | MacWorld Expo 2005 brings the first Intel-based computers from Apple, plus new applications and promises of doubled processing speeds. Anthony Burokas takes a closer look at the Macworld announcements and what they mean to event videographers.

For many of us—early adopters or not—2005 was the Year of HDV. But there was much more to 2005 than HDV. We saw scads of significant products released that had nothing to do with HDV and of course, event and corporate videographers the world over continuing to do dazzling, innovative, and effective everyday work with or without HDV. To provide readers with a highly subjective "Year in Review" report, we asked EventDV's many esteemed and opinionated columnists and contributing editors to reflect on the new products they saw in 2005 and tell us what struck them as the most exciting, and the biggest boon to their own work.

Doug Graham | The PopDrops DVD menu templates are Photoshop PSD files that have been created for maximum design flexibility, and are fully compatible with Adobe products like Encore. At $250 a pop (or $450 for both volumes and 240 templates in all), it won't take too long for PopDrops to pay for themselves.

Jan Ozer | Sonic Solutions DVDit Pro 6 has something to offer nearly every class of user. Those moving up from consumer tools will find the program easy to learn and more flexible and powerful than their current tools. And those who’ve worked with other prosumer-level products will find DVDit much easier to use, and quickly realize that the capabilities enabled by the bundled eDVD are essential to producing compelling, competitive DVDs. All users will value the stability that DVDit brings to bear, and appreciate the newly redesigned interface, which is as intuitive as any we’ve seen for DVD authoring.

For those who bet that Apple would soon lead the way in integrated multi-application postproduction suites, Final Cut Studio pays off handsomely. There are some nice feature additions found in the individual application upgrades—for example, Final Cut Pro’s new multicam editing feature—but the four-tool Studio suite is much more than the sum of its parts.

Jan Ozer | If your projects vary in terms of artistic and design complexity, you may find it worth investing in additional tools to improve efficiency and quality. Here are the programs that I use, and why--and when--I use them.

Anthony Burokas | How do the latest "pro" DVD decks stack up to one another? More importantly, how well do they measure up to the task of live DVD production for professional event work? Here we sample three new contenders from Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony for live production in the field.

DVD has become the delivery method of choice for most videographers, and more and more are authoring their own discs. Which authoring tools serve videographers best, and how does DVD affect the post-production process?

Avid Xpress Studio HD is far more expensive than the competition. That will and should dissuade some potential users, as will the somewhat steeper learning curve for most of the tools compared to Apple, Adobe, or Ulead. But consider what you’re getting: three industry-standard, time-proven editing interfaces in Xpress Pro, Pro Tools LE, and Avid 3D, and solid DVD authoring technology from Sonic in Avid DVD, that are continuing to evolve and grab features from their high-end siblings.

Some years back, a lifelong friend of mine asked me if I’d put together a DVD slideshow for his sister and her fiancé if they ever got married. Well, they finally set a date of June 4, 2005, and ten days before their wedding day I received a FedEx package containing two CDs: one with 115 scanned photos to use in the slideshow, and the other with 16 songs suggested for the soundtrack.

Jeff Sauer | The two new bundles from Avid and Apple are non-linear editing collections that include an NLE interface (Avid Xpress Pro and Final Cut Pro), as well as audio editing software, DVD authoring software, and other creation tools--Avid FX and Avid 3D in Avid Xpress Studio and Apple's Motion 2 motion graphics application in Final Cut Studio.

Stephen F. Nathans|Sony’s DVDirect knocked my socks off like no product I’ve seen in years. Billed as a product that combines the capabilities of standalone and desktop DVD recorders, DVDirect’s best feature is its ability to record live video to DVD as you shoot it. It boasts excellent image quality and limited but functional DVD menu creation. It’s also a rock-solid desktop burner, promising and delivering state-of-the-art high-speed DVD±R/RW and 4X double-layer DVD+R DL.

From tower-style copiers to disc publishing systems, doing your own DVD duplication and printing is easier and more affordable than ever, yet one more step in the post-production process that can be completed in-house.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s no easier way to make an attractive, easily navigated DVD than using MyDVD, and that’s as much the case in version 6 as in version 5. Which is saying something, since the competition got better in the meantime.

In this month’s EMedia Industry News, we debut a new monthly item on the latest, greatest, or at least the most interesting announcements that come our way in the digital studio domain. Here we’ll note curiosities alongside catalysts, milestones alongside mysteries, breakthroughs alongside…well, you get the picture.

We can all agree on what tapeless storage do: they save capture time and sidestep tape dysfunction by attaching to a camcorder and recording DV live and direct to disk. but who does it best? The answer comes down to size, capacity, battery life, usability, and more. Here, we compare three compact contenders: Shining's CitiDISK, MCE's QuickStream, and nNovia's QuickCapture A2D.

Stephen F. Nathans|After skipping a couple of generations, DVDit! returns well-equipped for videographers looking to jump into pro DVD authoring and MyDVD users ready to move up. It’s also well-positioned to compete head-on with other prosumer contenders, thanks to powerful and accessible navigation customization features that deliver many of the functional hallmarks of professional DVDs.

Geoff Daily|While we're still a year away from seeing any products on the shelves, the DVD Forum has laid another cornerstone for its next-generation blue-laser HD-DVD format by selecting the H.264 Advanced Video Codec (AVC) for encoding video that will be delivered on the new discs.

Jan Ozer | If you're already using Vegas 4, version 5 is a no-brainer upgrade. If your video productions are music-intensive, and you're not already using Vegas, you should be. Vegas can do virtually everything that Premiere Pro can do, and a whole lot more, but you'll get there faster and easier in Premiere Pro. Though vastly improved, DVD Architect still trails DVD Workshop and Encore in overall functionality.

Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen | Apple's iLife '04 boasts enough power and features that more and more post-production and videography professionals are using it in their studios. What does this consumer app have going for it that makes it a hit with the pros?

Hugh Bennett | After consumers have begun to make some sense out of writable DVD formats, along comes more confusion. Dual-layer recordable technology is promoted as a significant advance, but where does it fit in the real world?

With DVD MovieFactory 3 Disc Creator ($99), the first version of Ulead’s popular consumer tool to add CD burning, Ulead takes the lead in pared-down but purposeful editing capability with its multitrim feature. It also adds a solid CD burning tool in Burn.Now, continues its strong tradition of pleasing DVD and slideshow authoring, and makes sure all the parts hang together with impressive ease.

The first Vegas announcement of NAB 2004 came out of Madison, Wisconsin, as Sony Pictures debuted a full-step upgrade to its popular pro software NLE, Vegas 5. The company also offered up a new version of Vegas’ accompanying DVD authoring tool, DVD Architect 2.

Never has a consumer product in the digital media space packed so much power and versatility and made it so easy to get to. For application triage, Creator 7 has no peer. With the exception of the (still) disappointingly limited DVD Builder, they are all fine tools, and there are logical (and usually multiple) ways to navigate between them. What’s more, it’s got a mind-boggling price: it’s hard to argue with a suite jam-packed with top-notch apps for $99.

Is DVD Workshop 2 a worthy successor to its Editor’s Choice-winning forerunner? Happily, the answer is an unqualified yes, primarily because of the design flexibility and enhancements incorporated into the new version.

Stephen F. Nathans | Attendees of NAB 2004 in Las Vegas will find media manufacturers like Verbatim and drive makers like Sony doubling down and gambling that professional DVD authors and, soon, their consumer counterparts will pay a modest premium to (nearly) double the capacity of their recording media.

Colleen Kelly | Part of what makes today’s consumer-friendly DVD authoring tools so accessible is their success in shielding users from encoding and other techie tasks. But while ignorance may be bliss, aspiring DVD authors can’t do competent commercial work without a working understanding of the encoding process. What’s really happening behind the scenes, and what do you need to know about encoding to produce top-quality results?

Jeff Sauer | Is the current trend of integrating video editing and DVD authoring the wave of the future or a passing ripple? Is treating DVD authoring as anything other than than a serious, self-contained discipline something that professional users should take seriously? And among current options, what works, what doesn’t, and in what situations?

NTI has put together an attractively priced, well-integrated, powerful set of tools with an easy-to-use interface, and they should be applauded for that. But with no DVD movie-making functionality, NTI may have a hard time competing in a market where the other main players have DVD authoring built-in.

Synopsis: MyDVD 5 Studio Deluxe is the finest all-purpose CD/DVD creation software I’ve seen, offering as near to the best of DVD authoring and CD creation as you’ll find anywhere these days. And with its video editing features, MyDVD 5 essays competence in areas that others don’t even attempt.

Synopsis: In its maiden version, Adobe’s Encore DVD will serve a very strong cross-section of users looking to integrate DVD authoring into their post-production workflow. It has enough of a professional workflow—with drag-and-drop menus, a timeline interface for linking audio and video, some advanced navigation, and deceptively powerful project organization—to appeal to most users and most of their projects. It’s it easy enough—especially for those with DVD authoring or Photoshop experience—to build titles very fast.

Synopsis: With Nero 6, Ahead has attempted to make their product friendlier for mainstream users, but hasn’t always succeeded in their implementations of consumer-oriented interface changes. Nero remains a solid package for CD and DVD recording with a tremendous (and much-expanded) wealth of features, and packs plenty of power for those users who want it. But it’s hard to be all things to all people, and if Ahead is determined to make Nero the tool of choice for consumers and power-users alike, they need to find ways to integrate the two identities more cleanly.

DVD authoring software manufacturers are pushing hard to replace the VCR with the -VR and +VR and OpenDVD formats. But if both these formats serve more or less the same purpose, why have more than one?